Four repairmen working at the Emart in Tanhyeon of Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, were found dead early Saturday morning.

They are assumed to have suffocated by refrigerant while examining and fixing  a large refrigerating device of the air conditioning system at the shopping mall's basement.

According to a witness, identified as Lee, the victims- 58-year-old Park Ki-soon, 22 year-old Hwang Sun-won, 37-year-old Nam Se-hyun and 33-year-old Bang Hong-geun- were lying down on the floor of the room around 4 a.m.
when he found them. They were taken to a nearby hospital but died.

Lee said he had seen them healthy and working around 2 a.m. The workers had stayed in the 240 square-meter-room with the refrigerator 10 times larger than ordinary refrigerators at home since midnight.

"The deceased workers seemed to have used no protection tools since the work was pretty much of a trivial and routine-like job for them," a police officer said.

(baejisook@heraldcorp.com)